Ever-shrinking Staffs

Admittedly, the hotel side is only partly responsible for the hotel/planner communication disconnect. Compounding it is the fact that many in-house meeting departments have been downsized or outsourced, and planners resent all the steps that they are sometimes forced to take to get results.

Ritz-Carlton's Hoppe says she rarely encounters meeting-planning departments staffed with half a dozen qualified planners like they used to be. “So my staff — the catering and conference service managers — is expected to do a lot more because the people planning the meeting are not necessarily professional meeting planners, or they are a professional meeting planner but they are stretched so thin — their departments have been dissolved — that they really do expect the other end to do a lot more.”

Despite this, when communication gaffes happen, she says, it's the recovery that you should be concerned with.

“It's life: Someone is going to misinterpret your instructions at some point,” she says. “Get past the emotion of it and have faith in the CSM to fix it.”

Did You Know?

The first online RFP site appeared in January 1996. Back then, the Radisson Miyako Hotel San Francisco offered a simple meeting space request form on its Web site.
Source: Corbin Ball Associates www.corbinball.com

Today, 15 percent of all meetings are sourced via e-RFPs. “Over time, we'll hit that 40 percent or 50 percent rate,” says Bob Bennett, senior vice president, supplier market, for Philadelphia-based StarCite, which offers e-RFP services among its online meeting-management tools.

Spell It Out On Your Beo

A few ways to ensure that your intended message gets through:

• Sign the Banquet Event Order. Kimberly A. Hoppe, executive director of meetings and special events at the Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel, says that some planners are so overwhelmed with paperwork that they skip this crucial step. But that paper is the map that will be passed out to every employee involved with your meeting, so it pays to make sure that it reflects your needs.

• Don't be afraid to elaborate in writing on BEOs and contracts. If something is open to interpretation, make sure that you spell it out if it's important to you, right down to what color markers you want with your flip chart, says Bonnie Wallsh, CMP, CMM, chief strategist, Bonnie Wallsh Associates LLC, Charlotte, N.C. “The obligation is on the meeting planner to be clear,” she says.

• Spell out both day and date on all correspondence, to make sure that all parties have their schedules right. And date and number any versions of rooming lists, BEOs, and other communications, says Wallsh. It's a way to ensure that everyone has the same version.

When Not To Use E-mail

• When you're trying to reach consensus. It takes significantly longer to do this with e-mail.
• When the message is very long. Call first and then use e-mail to confirm the main points.
• When the news is really bad. “Routine” bad is fine; really bad is not.
• When the reader is likely to be displeased with your solution.
• When the reader has a different agenda from yours.
• When the information is sensitive. Disclaimers do not protect you!
• When the information is confidential. People could easily file and/or forward your note.
• When you're communicating with someone who prefers the phone to e-mail.
• When you know the other person will respond from his or her BlackBerry and you'll get only a two-word response to a complex question!

SOURCE: Sue Hershkowitz-Coore, CSP, www.speakersue.com

For information on standardized e-RFPs being developed for the meetings industry, visit the Convention Industry Council's site, www.conventionindustry.org